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Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.
In my opinion it is not sensible to buy everything at once if the fridge is small.

Breakdown of Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

olla
to be
pieni
small
ostaa
to buy
jos
if
ei
not
minusta
in my opinion
kaikki
everything
järkevä
sensible
kerralla
at once
jääkaappi
the fridge
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Questions & Answers about Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

What does minusta mean here, and why does it look like that?

Minusta literally means “from me”. It is the elative case of minä (“I”):

  • minä → minusta (from me, out of me)

In this kind of sentence, Finnish often uses minusta to express a personal opinion, equivalent to:

  • Minusta ei ole järkevää…
    = In my opinion, it is not sensible… / I think it’s not sensible…

So the structure is:

  • Minusta + (ei) ole + adjective
    → In my opinion, it is (not) …
How is minusta different from minun mielestäni?

Both mean almost the same thing: “in my opinion”.

  • Minusta

    • Shorter, very common in speech and writing.
    • Literally: “from me”.

  • Minun mielestäni

    • Slightly more explicit: literally “in my opinion / in my view”.
    • Also very common and perfectly natural.

Examples:

  • Minusta tämä on hyvä ajatus.
  • Minun mielestäni tämä on hyvä ajatus.
    → I think this is a good idea.

In your sentence, you could also say:

  • Minun mielestäni ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

The meaning is the same; the difference is mostly style and length.

Why is there no Finnish word for “it” in “it is not sensible to buy everything at once”?

Finnish usually does not use a dummy subject “it” like English does. Instead, the structure is:

  • (Minusta) ei ole järkevää ostaa…
    Literally: From-me not is sensible buy…

The “real subject” in meaning is the action ostaa kaikkea kerralla (to buy everything at once). Finnish simply:

  • puts olla (to be) in the 3rd person,
  • uses ei ole for negation,
  • and skips any meaningless “it”.

So:

  • Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla…
    → In my opinion, it is not sensible to buy everything at once…

The English “it” is just grammatical padding; Finnish doesn’t need it.

Why is järkevää in that form, not järkevä?

Järjestävä is the basic form (nominative singular) of the adjective, meaning sensible, reasonable.
Järkevää is the partitive singular form.

In sentences like this, where the “subject” is a clause or an infinitive phrase (“to buy everything at once”), Finnish often uses the partitive for the adjective:

  • On hauskaa uida. – It’s fun to swim.
  • On vaikeaa ymmärtää. – It’s hard to understand.
  • Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla. – In my opinion, it’s not sensible to buy everything at once.

So:

  • The pattern is: (Minusta) (ei) ole + adjective in partitive + infinitive clause
  • The partitive (järkevää) reflects a general, abstract quality of the action, not a concrete, countable thing.

Using järkevä here would be ungrammatical.

Why is ostaa in the basic dictionary form and not ostan or ostaa ostamista etc.?

Ostaa is the 1st infinitive (basic infinitive) of the verb to buy. In this structure, Finnish uses the infinitive like English uses “to buy”:

  • On järkevää ostaa…
    = It is sensible to buy…

If you said:

  • ostan – I buy / I will buy (personal form, 1st person singular)
    That would change the meaning to “I buy everything at once…”, which is not the intended structure.

Finnish could theoretically use a noun form like:

  • ostaminen – buying (as a noun)
    → Minusta ei ole järkevää kaiken ostaminen kerralla.
    This is grammatical but sounds more clumsy and less natural than using the infinitive:

  • Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla.

So the infinitive ostaa is the normal, smooth way to say “to buy” after on / ei ole järkevää.

Why is kaikkea in the partitive case, not kaikki or kaiken?

Kaikki is the basic form of “all / everything”. Its main singular forms are:

  • nominative: kaikki
  • genitive: kaiken
  • partitive: kaikkea

In ostaa kaikkea kerralla, the word functions as an object of ostaa and it is in the partitive (kaikkea). Reasons:

  1. Partitive object often marks an indefinite or not-fully-bounded quantity:

    • Ostan maitoa. – I (will) buy some milk. (unspecified amount)

  2. Here kaikkea can suggest “all kinds of things / everything (they want or need)”, rather than a clearly defined, closed set. It sounds like “buying everything (all sorts of stuff) at once”.

If you said:

  • ostaa kaiken kerralla, it would feel more like “buy all of it at once”, referring to a specific known total amount.

In your sentence, kaikkea matches the idea of indefinite “everything” / all sorts of things.

What does kerralla literally mean, and what form is it?

Kerralla comes from the noun kerta = time, occasion.

  • kerta → kerralla = “on/at one time, in one go”

The ending -lla is the adessive case, often meaning “on / at / in”. So kerralla literally is:

  • “at one time” / “in one go”
    → idiomatically: “at once / in one go”

For example:

  • Syö kaikki kerralla. – Eat it all at once.
  • En voi lukea tätä kaikkea yhdellä kerralla. – I can’t read all this at one go.
Why is it jos jääkaappi on pieni and not some other form like olisi pieni?

On pieni is plain present tense, real condition:

  • jos jääkaappi on pieni
    = if the fridge is small (and it really is / might realistically be small)

If you said:

  • jos jääkaappi olisi pieni
    that uses the conditional → if the fridge were small, suggesting a more hypothetical or contrary-to-fact situation.

In your sentence, it sounds like a real-world practical condition:

  • If the fridge (you actually have) is small, then it’s not sensible to buy everything at once.

So on pieni is the natural choice.

Why is jääkaappi in the basic form (nominative) and pieni also in basic form?

In jos jääkaappi on pieni, we have a simple copula clause:

  • subject: jääkaappi – the fridge (nominative singular)
  • verb: on – is (3rd person singular of olla)
  • predicative adjective: pieni – small (also nominative singular, agreeing with the subject)

Finnish adjectives in this role normally agree in case and number with the subject, and when the subject is nominative singular, the adjective is too:

  • auto on uusi – the car is new
  • jääkaappi on pieni – the fridge is small

So both remain in the basic (nominative) form.

Can I change the word order, for example start with Ei ole järkevää or move minusta?

Yes, Finnish word order is quite flexible. Some common variants:

  • Minusta ei ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.
  • Ei ole minusta järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.
  • Ei minusta ole järkevää ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

The default, most neutral version is the original. Moving minusta can slightly change the emphasis (for example, stressing that for me, personally it isn’t sensible), but the basic meaning does not change.

What you cannot do is move ei after ole (*ole ei järkevää), because ei must come before the main verb.

Is there another common way to say the same thing in Finnish?

Yes, there are several natural alternatives with slightly different nuances, for example:

  • Minusta ei ole järkeä ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

    • ei ole järkeä = there’s no sense (in). Very idiomatic: In my opinion, there’s no sense in buying everything at once if the fridge is small.

  • Minun mielestäni ei kannata ostaa kaikkea kerralla, jos jääkaappi on pieni.

    • ei kannata = it’s not worth it / it doesn’t pay off.
    • Slightly more about practicality or benefit.

All of these are natural ways to express the same basic idea.